What is interesting is to look back over the last 50 years and see how completely different the IT landscape is today. Pretty much all companies that were active in the market when Moore’s Law was penned have disappeared (with IBM being a notable exception and HP staggering on). Even Intel, the company Moore co-founded, didn’t get started until after he’d written the original article. At the same time IT has moved from a centralised mainframe world, with users interacting through dumb terminals to a more distributed model of a powerful PC on every desk. Arguably, it is now is heading back to an environment where the Cloud provides the processing power and we use PCs, tablets or phones that, while powerful, cannot come close to the speed of Cloud-based servers. This centralised model works well when you have fast connectivity but doesn’t function at all when your internet connection is down, leaving you twiddling your thumbs.

Looking around and comparing a 1960’s mainframe and today’s smartphone you can see Moore’s Law in action, but how long will it continue to work for? The law’s demise has been predicted for some time, and as chips become ever smaller the processes and fabs needed to make them become more complex and therefore more expensive. This means that the costs have to be passed on somehow – at the moment high end smartphone users are happy to pay a premium for the latest, fastest model, but it is difficult to see this lasting for ever, particularly as the whizzier the processor the quicker batteries drain. The Internet of Things (IoT) will require chips with everything, but size and power constraints, and the fact that the majority of IoT sensors will not need huge processing power means that Moore’s Law isn’t necessary to build the smart environments of the future.

Desktop and laptop PCs used to be the biggest users of chips, and the largest beneficiaries of Moore’s Law, becoming increasingly powerful without the form factor having to be changed. But sales are slowing, as people turn to a combination of tablets/phones and the processing power of the Cloud. Devices such as Google Chromebooks can use lower spec chips as it uses the Cloud for the heavy lifting, thus making it cheaper. At the same time, the servers within the datacentres that are running these Cloud services aren’t as space constrained, so miniaturisation is less of a priority.

Taken together these factors probably mean that while Moore’s Law could theoretically carry on for a long time, the economics of a changing IT landscape could finish it off within the next 10 years. However, its death has been predicted many times before, so it would take a brave person to write its epitaph just yet.

I had the chance this week to see an old copy of BT’s Technology Journal, published at the time of the millennium. To give you an idea of how long ago the year 2000 actually was, the cover trumpeted an interactive version of the journal on CD-ROM that delivered a multimedia experience.

What was most interesting were a series of technology timelines, across areas as diverse as health, home and entertainment that predicted what the world would be like in 2020 and beyond. By now (2013) we should all be watching 3D without glasses, using robots in the kitchen and the police will be equipped with phasers (as seen in Star Trek). Looking forward by 2015 we’ll be able to pleasure ourselves with the Orgasmatron (though I’m sure that was in a 1960s Woody Allen film).

It is really easy to laugh at predictions made 13 years ago, particularly as they spectacularly failed to imagine things such as tablet computing and Facebook which have changed our lives and disrupted industries. I remember Tomorrow’s World back in the 1970s happily demonstrating the jet packs we’d be using to get around by the turn of the millennium. I’m still waiting for mine to arrive.

The reasons that futurologists get it spectacularly wrong are two-fold. Firstly, progress is not linear. Moore’s Law may apply to computers, but not to everything. Creating artificial organs does not mean that we’ll have artificial brains ten years later. Research simply doesn’t work like that and is much more stop start. Even now, eureka moments can move things forward rapidly or development can hit a dead end.

The second, and most important factor, is about user acceptance – and this is where startups and innovators need to pay most attention. Just because technology can do something doesn’t mean that people will want to pay money for it. I’ve talked at length about how startups need to cross the chasm and create products that the mass market wants, rather than just early adopters. This is where a lot of the innovations predicted by BT (and plenty of others) fail. There simply isn’t a compelling reason for people to either change their behaviour and/or fork out significant amounts of money to take a risk on a new innovation. Understanding consumer behaviour and designing products to meet their needs is vital if new innovations are going to make it out of the lab and into the mainstream. Yes, we can create 3D TVs that don’t need glasses, but the cost is currently prohibitive. We could probably even build jet packs, but the legal framework isn’t there to control their usage.

So the lesson is clear – innovation, blue sky research and predicting the future is all very well, but think about the problem that you are trying to solve. Is there actually one? Do people care enough to change their behaviour? Will they pay money for it? Otherwise you’ll be left with a warehouse full of rusting robots as consumers spend their cash elsewhere. Though I do think the Orgasmatron probably has a decent chance of success…………

Why Revolutionary Measures?

Marketing is undergoing a revolution. The advent of social media provides the opportunity for one-to-one communication for the first time since the move to an industrial society. This blog will look at what this means for B2B PR and marketing, incorporating my own thoughts/rants and interests. Do let me know your feedback!

About me

I'm Chris Measures and I've spent the last 18 years creating and implementing PR and marketing campaigns for technology companies. I've worked with everyone from large quoted companies to fast growth start-ups, giving me unrivalled experience and ideas.
I'm now director of Measures Consulting, an agency that uses this expertise to deliver PR and marketing success for technology businesses.

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